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Author Topic: Devs: So THAT's how it works!  (Read 5214 times)
shiznitz
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Posts: 4268

the plural of mangina


on: March 23, 2005, 10:56:39 AM

I know EQ2 apathy is high here, but whatever.

In the last patch, the "AC" number for characters was split into two different values: mitigation and avoidance. Using rough examples from my level 26 Berzerker Nitz:

Old
AC: 2600

New
Mitigation: 1100
Avoidance: 58.2%

My tower shield adds ~5% to avoidance only. Defense skill buffs add to avoidance only. The avoidance % is versus a regular mob of equal level. Mousing over the mitigation number gives a % as well.

Ok, so what is the problem? Well, the Brawler subclasses have been insisting that since the agility nerf (reduced and capped the avoidance benefit for extremely high agility because it was possible to become unhittable) Brawlers have become completely useless as tanks since their avoidance hasn't been sufficient to compensate for much lower mitigation compared to plate classes. Splitting AC has made this complaint glaringly ACCURATE since Guardians have the best Defense self-buffs in the game (+15) and ALL of that goes into avoidance.

Needless to say, players went AH-HA! and Moorgard responded thusly:

Quote
To be clear once again: brawlers are intended to be tanks.

Displaying mitigation and avoidance has indeed revealed a class disparity, because the tanks that are supposed to be avoidance based are, in certain cases, not avoiding as well as a tank that is meant to be mitigation based.

It was never our intent that avoidance is a 100% thing, but that's basically how it is currently being used. This isn't just a problem with raid mobs, one that is present at all levels of play. There is, at every level range, a spot where you can select opponents that have little to no chance to hit you. Once again, that's not our intent.

A change that makes everyone not as good at avoiding damage isn't the solution in and of itself. When our mobs hit, they tend to hit for high amounts of damage, so suddenly even common fights would become a slaughter. Therefore any change to the way avoidance works will be accompanied by other changes that shift game balance such that mobs could hit more frequently but for much less damage.

This is still in the discussion phase, so additional changes will probably be made as well, such as to the effects of +Defense buffs or to the buffs themselves. But like I said we're still talking about this, so I will post details once a decision has been made on how we plan to tackle this issue.

===========================
Moorgard
EverQuest II Community Guy

So the way the client displays AC is changed and the devs learn something about their own game.

Now, I like EQ2 and still dedicate all of my 2 nights a week to gaming to this game exclusively, but these kinds of "revelations" of core game mechanics shouldn't happen 5 months after release.
« Last Edit: March 23, 2005, 10:58:32 AM by shiznitz »

I have never played WoW.
Aenovae
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Posts: 131


Reply #1 on: March 23, 2005, 12:05:43 PM

Yep, the players have known for a long time that brawlers and monks suck as tanks.  It didn't matter what SOE said on the forums, in game you could see the poor monk getting his ass beat and the priest spending extra power to keep him alive.

Frankly, we didn't really care since they do mega dps, so they're still useful and wanted in groups.

I like Moorgard's honest and revealing repsonse to the issue.  Another example of SOE's improved public relations.

Quote
these kinds of "revelations" of core game mechanics shouldn't happen 5 months after release.

Got to disagree with you there.  Every game has issues like this at relase, months after release, and even years after release.  Even large-budget projects with competent teams and an army of QA have had these kinds of issues well after release.

How exactly do you suggest SOE avoid these kinds of bugs?  Hire more people?  Their team is about 200 already IIRC.  Hire better people?  Judging from the state of the game for the past five months, they've already got a great team (snarky comments about art talent aside).  SOE is a large, well-oiled machine that has delivered a stable, mostly bug-free, adequately balanced game.

I know that a lot of people do not like the game itself, but the service so far is the best in the MMO industry.
Glazius
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Posts: 755


Reply #2 on: March 23, 2005, 01:41:26 PM

Quote
these kinds of "revelations" of core game mechanics shouldn't happen 5 months after release.

Got to disagree with you there.  Every game has issues like this at relase, months after release, and even years after release.  Even large-budget projects with competent teams and an army of QA have had these kinds of issues well after release.

How exactly do you suggest SOE avoid these kinds of bugs?
Uh.

It's not that buffs were adding to the wrong thing. It's that the comments reveal that, during development, the developers didn't actually know how their own game was working.

Knowing how something as fundamental as the basic combat mechanic works isn't an extra perk or an added bonus, and the lack of that knowledge isn't an understandable shortfall. Providing documentation for the code you write is a basic tenet of the software industry. At least, the successful software industry. Quick look here, longer look on the rest of the site.

Functionally worse? Sometimes that comes out only after extensive playtime.

Mathematically worse? That you should catch in the design phase. But they didn't.

--GF
shiznitz
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the plural of mangina


Reply #3 on: March 23, 2005, 01:47:57 PM

Functionally worse? Sometimes that comes out only after extensive playtime.

Mathematically worse? That you should catch in the design phase. But they didn't.

--GF

Exactly. I have sympathy if something that worked at level 1-20 in beta breaks at level 45-50. This, however, is not one of those issues. Mitigation and avoidance have always been there. The client just merged them for dispaly simplicity. For the devs to admit they were fooled by their own client (in effect) is unbelievable.

I have never played WoW.
SirBruce
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WWW
Reply #4 on: March 23, 2005, 07:59:16 PM

Jesus, they had the SAME PROBLEM with Super-Reflex scrappers in City of Heroes.  You'd think someone on the EQII team would know that and say, "Hey, let's make sure we don't have that problem in our game."?

Bruce
Glazius
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Reply #5 on: March 23, 2005, 11:29:52 PM

Jesus, they had the SAME PROBLEM with Super-Reflex scrappers in City of Heroes.  You'd think someone on the EQII team would know that and say, "Hey, let's make sure we don't have that problem in our game."?

Bruce
The CoH devs didn't know the difference between defense and damage resistance, so all other scrappers were outdodging a Super Reflex scrapper?

Not sure what you're talking about here...

--GF
Strazos
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Reply #6 on: March 24, 2005, 03:57:03 AM

No, it seems in CoH the mix-up was the effectiveness of defense vs mitigation. Defense would do fine against even-con or lower, but quickly became gimp when fighting stuff a level or two above the scrapper's head. Mitigation (see; Invulnerability), on the other hand, gave constant, consistent benefits: it took off the same percentage of damage, whether the hit was for 20 or 2000.

I personally don't have a problem with Brawlers being gimp tanks....I always thought they were meant to do damage, and be able to take a few swings, not straight-out tank.

Fear the Backstab!
"Plato said the virtuous man is at all times ready for a grammar snake attack." - we are lesion
"Hell is other people." -Sartre
shiznitz
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Posts: 4268

the plural of mangina


Reply #7 on: March 24, 2005, 04:58:08 AM

I personally don't have a problem with Brawlers being gimp tanks....I always thought they were meant to do damage, and be able to take a few swings, not straight-out tank.

But that breaks the archetype system EQ2 is built on. All the fighter types are supposed to be decent tanks, if not perfectly equal. Right now, this works fine into the mid20s. But once Guardians and Bezerkers start getting their defense buffs, the Monks start suffering in comparison, especially against the elite mobs.

I have never played WoW.
SirBruce
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Reply #8 on: March 24, 2005, 05:08:43 AM

Jesus, they had the SAME PROBLEM with Super-Reflex scrappers in City of Heroes.  You'd think someone on the EQII team would know that and say, "Hey, let's make sure we don't have that problem in our game."?

Bruce
The CoH devs didn't know the difference between defense and damage resistance, so all other scrappers were outdodging a Super Reflex scrapper?

They knew the difference, but they didn't do the math.  Defense/avoidance got "capped" at something like 95%, whereas damage resistance/absorption continued in a linear fashion.  Super-Reflex scrappers were getting the shaft.... after a certain level they were not as effective as other tanks (resistance, regeneration, etc.)

Bruce
Glazius
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Posts: 755


Reply #9 on: March 24, 2005, 06:22:41 AM

Jesus, they had the SAME PROBLEM with Super-Reflex scrappers in City of Heroes.  You'd think someone on the EQII team would know that and say, "Hey, let's make sure we don't have that problem in our game."?

Bruce
The CoH devs didn't know the difference between defense and damage resistance, so all other scrappers were outdodging a Super Reflex scrapper?

They knew the difference, but they didn't do the math.  Defense/avoidance got "capped" at something like 95%, whereas damage resistance/absorption continued in a linear fashion.  Super-Reflex scrappers were getting the shaft.... after a certain level they were not as effective as other tanks (resistance, regeneration, etc.)

Bruce
Ah, okay. I remember at release that was the case - it was actually possible to go over 100% mitigation on certain common types. They changed that - tanks max out at 90%, everyone else at 75%. 95% is still the defense cap, though. SR fully slotted for defense can get about a 66% boost, on top of everybody's innate 50% (even-con minions miss you half the time). It's about 200% if they can keep their final power going and deal with the exhaustion afterwards.

In practice it's about a 50% boost, maybe a little more, because half that defense is toggles, and toggles is expensive.

Scrappers are hybrid tanks, though. Nobody expects them to take the full brunt of the onslaught.

Now, _ice_ tanks, on the other hand...

--GF

...can hit the defense cap with Energy Absorption pretty easily.
kaid
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Reply #10 on: March 24, 2005, 07:28:28 AM

One of the other problems with the very defense slanted characters was the fact that it was very possible for resistance focused people to cap or close to cap their defense as well with the taking of certain power pool power combos. This was especially noticable with Invuln tanks and scrappers.

The other isssue is that there are a GREAT number more powers in the game that debuff defense than there are ones that debuff resists. Against certain types of mobs defense tanks were worse and worse and the resist guys performed in their standard consistant way.


From what I hear though of the folks playing they have done a lot of tweaking and balancing and it is a lot more even now so both are valid types.

kaid
Sky
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Reply #11 on: March 24, 2005, 07:41:22 AM

Quote
It's not that buffs were adding to the wrong thing. It's that the comments reveal that, during development, the developers didn't actually know how their own game was working.
Sounds exactly like my experience with the dev team regarding SWG.
SirBruce
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Reply #12 on: March 24, 2005, 07:47:05 AM

Scrappers are hybrid tanks, though. Nobody expects them to take the full brunt of the onslaught.

That wasn't the point.  The point was their tanking ability relative to the other scrapper disciplines -- regen, etc.  The math worked out that reflex scrappers were simply not competitive.

Bruce
jpark
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Reply #13 on: March 24, 2005, 12:14:01 PM

From an unrelated thread in this forum a few days ago, this is on topic:

As for warrior types in EQ2 they actually *do* have other interesting abilities... For example, monks are good avoiders whereas other warrior types are good damage mitigaters.  You can have a monk as primary tank, using sets of abilities that will boost their avoidance, and then have another warrior type steps up and uses an ability that will allow them to intercept a lot of the damage landing on the monk.  The result is then that the monk avoids most of the attacks.  Of those that land, many get intercepted and land on the heavier tank who mitigates the damage well.  The game is full of subtle things like that which you can do if are interested in a more challenging game.

The game is full of it alright.  As a healer, often working with several healers, we hated monk tanks.  Damage mitigation and damage avoidence work well for low level crap but at the higher levels it breaks down.  When you're dealing with a high level mob (relative to the tank) who is going to hit you pretty much every round - who's the better "tank"?  Take a deep breath before you type.  This isn't variety, it is class inferiority.

"I think my brain just shoved its head up its own ass in retaliation.
"  HaemishM.
kaid
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Reply #14 on: March 24, 2005, 12:24:40 PM

Monk tanks work pretty well if paired with shamans as healers. That said though the avoidance of the monks is hardly if any better than the guardian who also has a TON more mitigation. That is wrong and they will have to do something to correct that. It is kind of odd that they did not realize it but at least they did not bury their heads in the sand about it but admitted it and are looking at it now.

People make mistakes and sometimes just looking at things on the old spread sheets dosn't always ring that AH HA bell of comprehension about how things really shake down.

I will give the eq2 team big kudos for being very responsive to the player base about looking into issues and correcting them when the customers are right. Also while doing that not taking 6 months to get started with the issues.

Kaid
Sky
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I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.


Reply #15 on: March 24, 2005, 01:54:49 PM

Quote
I will give the eq2 team big kudos for being very responsive to the player base about looking into issues and correcting them when the customers are right. Also while doing that not taking 6 months to get started with the issues.
I'll definitely concede that one. In that capacity, the EQ2 team is lightyears (heh) ahead of the SWG team...
schild
Administrator
Posts: 60345


WWW
Reply #16 on: March 24, 2005, 05:09:01 PM

Quote
I will give the eq2 team big kudos for being very responsive to the player base about looking into issues and correcting them when the customers are right. Also while doing that not taking 6 months to get started with the issues.
I'll definitely concede that one. In that capacity, the EQ2 team is lightyears (heh) ahead of the SWG team...

And WoW. I know this sort of performance doesn't show right away. But 2 years from now EQ2 may still be climbing when the game becomes a lot more palatable.
Strazos
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Reply #17 on: March 24, 2005, 06:23:16 PM

Yeah, maybe when they flip off the "UBERGRIND!! switch".

Fear the Backstab!
"Plato said the virtuous man is at all times ready for a grammar snake attack." - we are lesion
"Hell is other people." -Sartre
Sky
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Posts: 32117

I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.


Reply #18 on: March 25, 2005, 07:43:14 AM

Nothing will save EQ2 from it's unfriendly mindset, nor it's punitive and drawn-out methods. Not even a "combat revampupgrade" style change (because imo that won't help swg, either). Group death penalties, locked encounters, tied mobs, locked out dungeons, it's pretty extensive.

Sure, if I had a solid group of friends that could meet every few nights to play for hours, it'd be ok, I guess. But then...that's exactly the situation that drove me to crpgs in the first place. So we're back to square one.
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